Talk:Violence at Cronulla Beach as 5000 people gather

I think I merged "Battle of the Beach" into this article via redirect. Nyarlathotep 19:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

What is the source of this? - "SUBJECT: WHITE POWERlets hope these filthy lebs get whats comming to them! on sunday every white person in the area that still gives a shit about this country will meet at cronulla beach to beat the living shit out of any muslim/arab in sight. lets hope this spreads to the rest of the country until this filth is eradicated! 25,000 are expected to turn up, including sydneys biggest bike gang and stormfront." - It's extremely offensive. --elliot_k 02:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Added by an anon. I can't find it in any of the sources, or on Google News or Google Groups. I've removed it, also the reference to "neo-nazis". - Borofkin 02:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I've moved it back to develop, because I think a great deal needs to be done with this story. Because of the wildly differing points-of-view on this issue, this will be a good test for us. - Borofkin 02:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There was talk of this today, and i'll try to verify, but sms alerts like the violent/racist message above were definately circulated. There was even talk of using the new "Sedition" laws to charge the person who sent out the message... more later. --elliot_k 02:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep, there were definitely SMS messages going around. If we can find someone who received one we can include it in the article as original reporting. - Borofkin 02:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm giving this story a make-over... --elliot_k 03:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There's some awesome pictures at flickr. I've emailed the guy who took them and asked him to release them under a free licenese. Do we know of any other pictures we could use? - Borofkin 03:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

We certainly need more pictures. This is turning out to be a great article (of a tragic event) but without images it is not as good as it could be. - Apollyon 14:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Warren Hudson has set the licence on his flickr photo's of the Cronulla Riot to Creative Commons attribution, which means we can upload them to the Commons. The photo's are here:

"In what has been described as disgusting, un-Australian and shameful behaviour, a 5000-strong mob assaulted people suspected of being of Lebanese or ethnic origin."

Just who is "ethnic" and who is "unethnic"? I realise this is probably referring to people of Mediterranean apperance, but if it is it should state this in a compleatly accurate and correct way so that that people unfamiliar with Australia understand.--220.238.43.237 04:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably a fair point. The protest/riot appears to have been directed solely at Lebanese, I don't remember any other ethnic group being mentioned, so I've removed the "ethnic origin" bit. - Borofkin 04:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Sixteen people have been arrested and charged with 41 offences after a night of anti-social behaviour. Police have also issued a number of Field Court Attendance Notices for various offences. General duties and specialist police from the Inner Metropolitan, Greater Metropolitan, Northern and Southern Police regions were deployed as part of a police operation following anti social behaviour at North Cronulla Beach, Maroubra and Brighton Le Sands yesterday afternoon. Twenty-three civilians (20 males and three females) and two ambulance officers were injured at North Cronulla. Six police were injured suffering cuts, sprains and bruising. The following people were charged:

• A 25-year-old Cronulla man was charged with assault police x 2. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 24 January, 2006.

• A 36-year-old Bondi Junction man was charged with resist arrest x 3 and possess prohibited drug. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 24 January, 2006.

• A 34-year-old Cronulla man was charged with offensive manner and resist arrest x 2. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 24 January 2006.

• A 17-year-old male juvenile from Cronulla was charged with assault police and will appear at Sutherland Children’s Court on 24 January, 2006.

• A 33-year-old Kareela man was charged with offensive behaviour and will appear in Sutherland Local Court on 24 January, 2006 • A 28 year-old Cronulla man was charged with threaten violence and affray. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 19 January, 2006.

• An 18-year-old Granville man was charged with possess knife in a public place, drive furiously and not display P Plate. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 24 January, 2006.

• A 20-year-old Lugarno man was charged with affray and offensive behaviour. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 2 February, 2006.

• A 21-year-old Greenacre man was charged with possess offensive implement and goods in custody. He was bailed to appear at Kogarah Local Court on 17 January, 2006.

• A 17-year-old male juvenile from Mascot was charged with drive in a manner dangerous and negligent driving. He was bailed to appear at Sutherland Children’s Court on 17 January, 2006.

• A 25-year-old Northmead man was charged with drive in a manner dangerous and negligent driving. He was bailed to appear in Kogarah Local Court on 10 January, 2006.

• A 21-year-old Jannali man was charged with resist police x 2 and was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 2 February, 2006

• A 40-year-old Sutherland man was charged with offensive language. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 24 January, 2006.

• A 24-year-old Cronulla man charged with offensive behaviour, affray, resist arrest and not comply with a direction. He was granted bail to appear at Sutherland Local Court on 13 January 2006.

• 20-year-old Riverwood man was charged with breach of bail condition and is expected to appear at Sutherland Local Court today.

What about putting links to some of the USENET postings referred to in the 'sources' section? Either http: links to a USENET archive or news: links to USENET itself. That way readers know it's not just a USENET beat up.

Let me just say that the quality of wikinews articles as a whole, this one and the oil thingy blowing up, being prime examples, Is definitly Improving and, sometimes Surpassing other news sources. Good Work. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Absolute crap, there was 1 girl waving a Patriotic Youth League sign, there were NO reports of racist flags unless we now consider the Australian flag to be racist.

Have a look at the pictures on flickr - there are people with "no lebs" written on their shirts, posters that say "today is the shire's independence day". Also, in the context of what happened on Sunday, the use of the Australian flag was racist. This was truly a shameful event. The footage of an ambulance, surrounded by police, driving away from a mob that is pelting them with bottles just topped the whole thing off. - Borofkin 23:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I need to verify this but there were indeed White Power flags, posters etc. And many people had painted anti-lebanese slogans on their bodies...--elliot_k 10:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

And why remove the historical context? johnnie howard may want us to forget about the White Australia policy, but this was still legally happening until the 1970's. In any case, wikipedia and wikinews are about NPOV - we may not like what happened in the past, but we can't pretend it happened 1000 years ago. The majority of wikinews editors (those living in Australia) probably did not exist before 1973 (Whitlam's effective closing down the policy), but have nevertheless been influenced by parents, grandparents, teachers, university academics, media owners who are much older than 32... Racism is a fundamental part of Australian history and there's no need to pretend that what just happened is isolated from all historical context. Boud 23:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit skeptical about the relavence of White Australia to this particular incident. Racism is certainly a fundamental part of Australian history - it is a fundamental part of the history of all nations, and arguably fundamental to human nature. If you want to provide "historical context" for the events, I reckon it would be better to add a few paragraphs about community paranoia surrounding Vietnamese crime gangs a decade ago, or Italians and Greeks in the 50's, or the Chinese in the 1800's. - Borofkin 23:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm also a bit skeptical about the opening paragraph. I doubt all 5000 people attacked people. The attacking mob was probably smaller than 5000.

I am reinstating the "WHITE POWER" source in this story. Yes, I find the content of that source vile, but here are my reasons for reinstating it.

It shows that early on in the piece that white supremacists were involved in organising the events at Cronulla. It seems that those who took part in Sunday's events were being used, probably unawares, by white supremacists.

Combined with the "aus.tv" source, it shows how a racist call can get transformed into a more innocuous form, hiding its true meaning. Documenting this effect might cause some to question such 'milder' calls in the future.

It is a primary source. Reports from the police are secondary sources. If someone says "I don't believe the police" and denies the involvement of white supremacists the USENET post proves them wrong.

Didn't have to reinstate it. Someone beat me to it John Dalton 23:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

PROPOSAL FOR A WIKINEWS PROJECT: Can someone try to trace the 'paper trail' (electron trail??) backwards on the Internet, and draw a tree diagram to pinpoint where the calls for gathering at Cronulla first entered the Internet and how they evolved? When did the first call go out? Did the SMS messages predate USENET postings?

Can you provide us with a link to one of these postings? I haven't seen one yet... - Borofkin 00:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Does the link in the wikinews source work for you? Clicking the title of the link should give you Google's record of the USENET posting to aus.politics (google groups is just an interface to USENET). Clicking on "show options">"show original" within google groups shows the source of the USENET message. Here are the headers for the "WHITE POWER" message, including the message-ID:

I've been able to find these messages on the news server of my ISP as well.

There is a second message out there trying to organise a repeat of the events with in a different location with 10x the people. It was sent via an anonymiser and signed "Action for Australia". Headers are below:

Should copies of these postings be uploaded to Wikinews? The nature of USENET is that articles expire after a certain time, so they will disappear from local servers. Also, aus.politics will see limited distribution outside Australia. Alternatively, perhaps google groups acts as a perpetual global archive for USENET so the existing links will do? John Dalton 00:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The nutters are on the move again, posting to USENET to try and get a repeat of Cronulla in another part of Sydney. I saw a brief report on Wikinews, which was deleted. The reasons given for the deletion were to avoid publicity for the nutters' cause. Is there a consensus on how to handle such situations?

So far I've just saved a copy of the USENET posting, for use as a source after the event if anything happens. I also sent a copy to the news desk of a mainstream newspaper on the basis that they might know how to handle it 'properly'.

I used google groups to seach Usenet for any postings containing the words "Cronulla" and "Sunday" between the dates Sunday 4th December (the days the lifesavers were assaulted) and Sunday 11th December (the days of the violence). The only postings I could find were the two referenced by this article. Either google coverage isn't complete, a lot of people read Usenet or most of the organisation was done by other means (eg. text messenging). Since the 11th Usenet is abuzz with Cronulla, but little before then.

I've just deleted the "chanted racist slogans" and waving nationalist flags out of the story. Check the press, there was NONE of this. There was an occasion anti-lebanese chant but there was NO reports of white nationalists flags!!!!

Incorrect. It has been widely reported that there were many racist chants. I've reinstated the comment and am also adding more on the White Pride element. It has also been reported that WP groups were present, Jim Saleam and Luke Conners (notorious racists) both stated there were ove 100 of their members at the rally. With some coming all the way from Newcastle. According to other media sources 2GB talkback radio also played a big part in stirring the wasp nest... More to come. --elliot_k 10:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Any options on which is more accurate? Wikipedia says "White supremacy is a racist ideology which holds that the white race is superior to other races.", whereas "White nationalism is a political and social movement to advance the social and economic interests of white or Caucasian people. White nationalists explicitly deny being racial supremacists, arguing that they merely wish for each group of people with shared heritage." What to call them is always going to be a matter of opinion, perhaps we should only refer to what people are calling them, e.g. "Persons who the premier described as 'neo-nazi's'... ? - Borofkin 00:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe there has been some debate about the term "White Nationalist" -- based on my quick reading, it's the preferred term by White Supremacists who want to appear more legitimate. --Chiacomo(talk) 00:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

This appears to be a new development, probably deserving of it's own article, so I'm going to remove all references to video's from this article. I've informed the anon that s/he should start a new article. - Borofkin 00:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The term "neo-nazi emblem" has been replaced with "triskelion emblem". I can find no mention of such an emblem in the sources, so I'm also going to remove this. Please discuss here on the talk page before putting it back in. - Borofkin 00:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews is not a discussion board, a chatroom, or a soapbox. (WN:NOT) Although Wikinews appreciates that all persons have a viewpoint regarding news events, Wikinews article talk pages are to work toward the improvement of the related article and not to express the views of readers. There are sites for this, such as http://pov.wikicities.org, but Wikinews itself is not it. - Amgine | talken.WN 10:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

We were visiting there shortly before this happened. I was shocked at learning about this. This whole thing of 'we grew here, you flew here' Unless your Aborigne , Your not so long ago ancestors floated here on the Jail Boat. The Aborignes got there homes robbed by killers, rapists, and robbers; and your in protest over Muslims; who you find guilty JUST by racial profiling? They say usually what we are most sickly offended by, is what reflects in ourselves; maybe now I see the connection.